Animals have the capability of adapting to many and various environmental conditions; the limitation of adaptation depends mainly on the animals' absolute physilogical limitations and the rate of environmental change of adaptive pressure to which the animal is subjected. Successful adaptation to a new environment is frequently based on adequate previous learning or adaptation to environmental change. There are, inevitably, limits to the rate at which any animal can cope with environmental change. Exceeding these limits can result in a physiological breakdown (illness or death) and/or behavioristic reactions (inhibition or fear learning), which may program large areas of the infant's subsequent life. The adaptive capacity or capability can apparently always be extended or increased by an incremental or programmed chance in the environment which is within the adaptive limits of the animal.
The most difficult transition that a mammal is required to make in his lifetime would appear to be the change from the intrauterine environment to the extrauterine environment at birth. Not only is every element of the infant's environment changed, but the effect (fear learning) is intensified because the animal has had no experience in adapting to changing environmental conditions, as the intrauterine environment is highly protected by a number of mechanisms provided by nature.
The environmental changes through which an infant must transition include:
1. Temperature
The infant is maintained at body core temperature of 98.6.degree. and transitions to delivery room temperture of approximately 70.degree.. These figures may be modified by an increased maternal core temperature due to labor and evaporative cooling which the wet infant endures. The thermal shock of birth transition will range between 30.degree. and 40.degree. F.
2. Tactile sensation
An omni present, enclosing, mild, weightless, tactile sensation is present and applied equally over 100% of the infant's body. This sensation is generated by the uterus, the amniotic sac, and the hydraulic amniotic fluid system. In extrauterine life this tactile sensation is changed to a pressure against small portions of the infant's head, trunk and legs estimated to be 15% to 20% of the body surface area. The weightlessness of counter balanced density in utero is changed to a feeling of heaviness as the infant is pressed by his own weight against a flat, comparatively hard, pad.
3. Audio
The term gravid intrauterine audio profile consists of a loud continuous din created mainly by maternal cardiovascular and gut sounds. The fluid sound transmission system present in the uterus is approximately five times as efficient as sound transmission in air. The extrauterine enviornment is strikingly different in audio patterns and in efficiency of transmission. Acoustic trauma can be induced by changing a long preconditioned sound pattern from loud to quiet equally as well as from quiet to loud.
4. Motion
The uterine enclosure moves frequently and smoothly in rolling movements about the fetus both day and night. The system is highly protective as pressures are transmitted through a hydraulic fluid equally to all portions of the infant's body. The infant is weightless and capable of free and easy movements within the container. In the extrauterine environment, the infant is pressed by his own weight, against the crib pad. His own movements are nearly impossible and the movement of the bassinet is completely foreign to anything he has experienced.
5. Light
The illumination level in the uterus is approximately zero. The infant is transitioned into an operating room illumination level of 200 to 300 foot lamberts of light energy.
Infant care, particularly immediately following birth, has evolved over the last several decades into a pattern which appears to be contrary to a healthy adaptation of the infant to its new environment. Most women in modern societies will give birth to their children in hospitals. To minimize microbiological contamination, hospital care is most often programmed for the newborn infant in such a way as to remove the infant from the mother and isolate it in a nursery. The nursery is frequently well lighted and kept at a temperature which is considerably less than the temperature the infant experiences in the intrauterine environment. In addition, the acoustic and tactile environment are grossly altered, as compared to the world the infant has known. Applicant is of the opinion that this abrupt change in the environment tends to intensify the infant's intrauterine to extrauterine transition and may create adaptive scars which affect the person's emotional and physical response to the subsequent adaptive or environmental changes throughout the remainder of his life.
The present invention has for one of its objects a method and apparatus which provides a gradual transition of an infant from its intrauterine environment to the extrauterine environment without requiring significant changes in the current method of handling and care of the infant.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved infant environmental transistion system which initially simulates parameters of the environment of the near term gravid uterus as the infant perceives them through bodily senses and changing said simulated parameters to parameters simulative of the extrauterine environment at a rate within the normal or nonpathological adaptive capacity of the infant.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved infant environmental transition system which initially simulates temperature, light, tactile sensation, motion and audio profile sensed by the infant in the near term gravid uterus and gradually changes these simulative parameters to simulate the extrauterine environment to which the infant must adapt.